Drought in Farm Area Knocks Out the Brain Trust
Drought in Farm Area Knocks Out the Brain Trust Planners Baffled by Mother Nature and Congress Faces Adjournment With No Baste Problems of Depression Solved. |JOR more than a year the great...
...Krueger launched an attack on the federal farm program...
...Of course, these are the problems as the Brain Trust sees them...
...Of first importance is the President's message on Social Reconstruction...
...And the reality itself is more or less inadequate even for the limited purpose to which it is directed...
...The NKA officials oppose this and will probably have their way...
...When he comes to his third point, the President really begins to talk sense...
...Of course, there are much deeper causes for the entire persecution of the "highbrow brigade" and the "liberals...
...Our "great Solons" thought they would prove the professor to be a red Bolshevik, against the Constitution of the United States, for "regimentation" of everybody and everything, and for the dictatorship of something or somebody...
...But "Rex" turned tables on them...
...He came out of the inquisition fires not only untouched but robed in ermine...
...That is not all...
...He predicted that complete Socialist tickets will be filed in fifty of the state's seventy counties this year...
...A farm program was approved by the conference and J recommended by it to thePlatfOrm Committee of the state convention of the Wisconsin Socialist Party, meeting in Milwaukee June 16-17...
...I am informed from fairly reliable sources that the President's social insurance plan was at least partially inspired by a book, "Insecurity—A Challenge to America," by Abraham Epstein, executive secretary of the American Association for Social Security...
...Carl Minkley, veteran Sodllist campaigner, and Maynard Krneger, member of the Socialist National Executive Committee...
...Walter Sin'gler can't do it add Milo Reno can't do it...
...As a result of that the Agriculture Committee, by a vote of 16 to 2, reported favorably the Tugwell nomination...
...All of them were veterans of the recent milk strikes in Wisconsin and are thoroughly disillusioned of any hope coming from state or national Democratic administrations...
...The profit system || the evil at the root of our difficulties, and we farmers have finally learned our lesson...
...Take Profit Out of War, Says Veterans'Organ Those Who Fought See Clearly Why They Were Sent t% Fight By a Veteran IN reading the issue of the Na• tional Tribune of June 7, I am again reminded of the great change that has taken place during she last few years in the minds of the editors of that semi-official organ of the veterans of all wars...
...Those days are gone...
...Schauffelberger is a militant farm leader from Lincoln County, where ten years ago it wasn't safe for anyone to admit he was a Socialist...
...Ostensibly the hearing was to investigate the fitness or unfitness of Professor TugwelPs nomination as Under-Secretary of Agriculture...
...They are out to build a new social order and are out to build it working with the worker in the city...
...For a second point, the President turns to a discussion of the "necessary readjustment of the population...
...A good many krmers didn't even have the JWney to buy gasoline to come we today...
...After a lot of wrangling over the meanini of some technical economic terminology, Tugwell said to Senator Bailey: "The Senator apparently doesn't understand the differenci between a scientist who tries te explain something and a politician who tries to advocate something...
...Wisconsin farmers have taken to the Jarm program drafted by the letional convention of the Socialist Party like a duck takes to water...
...We Socialist office-holders fiddle for yon working people who elect us...
...After certain gestures in the direction of Congress, he launches into a discussin of "security" in the home, which is a phrase of high-sounding importance, pointing to the fact that we have crossed the last frontier, and we have now to devise new wajs to attain and preserve security...
...In the past the manufacturer and financier have dictated to Uncle Sam when the country was at war...
...With the cost of living going up the workers are striking for increased wages and the strikes give the NRA officials the jitters...
...Such a law would serve a double purpose...
...They rtarted out trying to patch up the MPitalist system which is bringing g to ruin, All they did was to W to allow a little less profits JW »H the big monkeys...
...Then the forces of nature intervened with a drought and there is a food shortage of large proportions...
...explained in detail the...
...As far as the hearing is adeemed, instead of showing iM" well's unfitness, it actually strengthened him...
...By popular demand, Krueger...
...A few Communists were present, as usual, but the crowd forced them to keep silent...
...If the Army and Navy are to win a war, they must have the backing of the entire country and the government must be in a position to take over industry and finance just as it haa taken over man power in the past...
...But the impact of the intervention of natural forces upon the system has other results...
...The major problems are how to get the jobless back to work, how to feed them while out of work, and "how public confidence can be restored so that capital can be re-employed in private enterprise...
...But that's too long a story to go into...
...History shows that the instigators of war, in many cases, are those who profit...
...Only minor points of difference appeared and they were ironed out with little difficulty...
...Behind the Scenes in Washington The President's Message—Dr...
...There will be no real market for farm produce until^the workers are able to buy, and the workers will not be able to buy as long as capitalism lasts...
...QR...
...Then the youth of the country bore the bmrtt of the burden while the men with the dough* bags sat at home and reaped a harvest of riches...
...But when his program is examined it bolls down to slum clearance and a bill to enable owners to borrow money for painting and repairing residential property...
...We quote the United States News: "Farmers will think that they would have been better off without restriction and will blame the Federal Government...
...Real causes...
...You Jjnners are showing thaU you **Uy realise this system is breaking down...
...Benson announced that Socialist organizations had been established in twenty counties never organized before, since the first of the year...
...It may be questioned whether any system of old ,age and unemployment ins'UWlhat .will ever be adequate to mWt a critical situation such as we have had during this depression...
...There will be Congressional elections and we may expect the Grand Old Party to make gains against the Roosevelt Democracy...
...This alto upsets all budget calculation...
...With the profit taken out of war these Interests will be less prone to send the flower of our youth into battle to be killed or maimed...
...It's too hot in Washington now, is more than one sense...
...In Denmark, where the Socialists control the government and the marketing agencies, a farmer can live like a gentleman on ten acres...
...And not only of Tugwell himself, bVt of the entire so-called "brain trust," or the "young liberals" who have the President's ear...
...Senators "Cotton Ed" Smith of South Carolina, Byrd of Virginia, and Bailey of North Carolina became the inquisitors...
...The Socialist Party has long been a pioneer in demanding old age pensions, unemployment insurance and other social legislation...
...It is now common knowledge that ' the international bankers who had lent millions abroad and who con' trolled the munitions industry in' this country were largely responsible for the United States entering the World War...
...There is no doubt a place for Federal assistance in conservation or "planning" of this sort, although the possibilities of colonization are probably exaggerated...
...So the ruling police of capitalism are paralyzed by the stupendous problems they face...
...The conference will be followed up with a series of farm picnics throughout the state, at which the Socialist farm program will be developed...
...It would put the government in a far better position to defend the country and at the same time would serve as a medium for the maintenance of peace...
...They enthusiastically hailed the new Socialist weekly, the Wisconsin Leader, and promised to use every possible effort to roll up a big circulation for the paper...
...What have you got from these Mr parties...
...The facts brought out are known to readers of the daily press...
...The interests of the workers and farmers are inextricably bound together...
...REXFORD B. TUGWELL " put i9 all over the Senators...
...The farmers were particularly pleased with the Socialist plank which recognizes the one-family farm as the unit of production...
...Speakers and organizers will tour the state and there is every reason to expect a great increase in the Socialist vote this fall and a large growth in the Socialist organization...
...This message is the very newest of the "New Deal," a long-range legislative program supposed to do away with poverty, or at least with insecurity...
...The Washington correspondent of the New York Sun tries to sum up the work of Congress in a story the headlines of which read: "All Issues Met but Main Ones...
...JOR more than a year the great minds at * , Washington have been trying to plan capitalism, to regulate it, to revive it, to iron out its contradictions and make it work...
...Tugwell on the Rack By Benjamin Meimon Special Correspondence CINCE our last peep behind the scenes, a number of things have happened in Washington worthy of consideration...
...The Sun writer continues: "Stripped of all superficialities, the fact stands out at the end of the session that the two vital issues have not been met All the law-making, the debating and bolstering of the Brain Trust has not changed the fundamental situation...
...Already milk prices are beginning to move higher, with resentment shown in the cities...
...In reality it was a heresy trial...
...Up to this time the Socialists have been unsuccessful in the districts because you farmers have looked upon yourselves as capitalists and you have accepted the quack remedies offered you by the Progressives and the other parYou have been fooled by the UFollette Punch and Judy show...
...Epstein's work has a foreword by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins...
...The Mayor bitterly attacked Governor Schmedeman for his actions during the milk strike, saying: "If you elect a Socialist governor, you can be sure he will not send thugs and deputies to your fields, as Governor Schmedeman did, to throw (far-gas bombs at you and to club you...
...The conference showed that the Socialist Party has made great progress in the farm areas...
...Full freedom of discussion prevailed, and farmer after farmer took the floor...
...There is little change in the number of the jobless, which exceeds ten millions, and Congress is approaching adjournment...
...Eight hundred attended the mass meeting which opened the conference, addressed by Mayor Daniel V. Hoan, Al Benson, state secretary of the Socialist Party...
...These messiahs who set up this new third party are a bunch of opportunists and petty office-seekers," he said...
...But surely this can not be expected of a Democratic or Republican President...
...Farmers restricted their planting, and this cost the government tens of millions of dollars...
...The Morgans and the Rockefellers and the big profiteers who contribute to the other parties have bought those parties ''and their offlce-jiojders fiddle for ¦-•the big boys...
...Before the next Congress the President lays "three great objectives": Security of home, of job or livelihood, of social insurance...
...By now it has become apparent to everyomrtbat it is the processing companies, the milk trust, and the middlemen who are gaining from the policies of Wallace and Tugwell...
...Most of Professor Tugwell's examination revolved about a speech he delivered three years ago to the American Economic Association which the Senators interpreted entirely different thsn did the Professor...
...Krueger told the farmers there is no hope for them in the New Deal policies...
...Farmers were to reduce acreage because too much was being produced 'for the markets, but the planners did not consider one thing, the forces of nature...
...It will now cost about a half-billion dollars to prevent the victics of the drought from starving...
...We pay twenty cents a pound for pork chops and get two cents a pound for our hogs...
...Knowing they would be unable to garner enormous wealth by the sale of their wares, munitions makers and the rich bankers who finance them would ponder a long time before trying to get this ! country involved in another war...
...Strongpolitical and economic causes...
...That condition must be ended...
...Unless—-shaH I say it?— unless the government* actually takes away the things that were caught by the biggest "catchers" and gives to those who absolutely need it for their "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness...
...The Republican National Committee last week adopted a cautious statement which, in substance, declares that something must be done but does not say what must be done...
...We're not going to waste any time with the LaFollettes," Hoan said to great cheering...
...That did seem to be the trouble...
...This seems to be another name for what the President sometimes calls "planning," which, as he defines it, is really the old matter of national conservatism in a new dress, with an added program for colonizing the populations of one part of the country in another part...
...To correct that we've got to take action . aurselves, through the Socialist Party...
...Alex Shiuffelberger, militant Socialist Urm leader from northern Wisqwin...
...The hearing was staged bj» the Senate Agriculture Committee to show up the over-publicized "brain truster" of the Roosevelt administration...
...And then what...
...Socialist farm program, His explanation made a big hit with the- assembled group, and,he received many,requests to address meetings throughout the state...
...You can't keep the wolf away from your door with 160 acres...
...Four hundred farmers from more than forty counties hailed it as "the finest farm program ever drafted by an American political party" at the farm conference held by the Wisconsin Socialist Party in Wausau last week-end...
...I advise every one of our open" air speakers to send five cents in 1 stamps to The National Tribune, 1 44 G St., NE, Washington, D. C, for a copy of the issue of Jane 7, Badger Farmers Line Up for Socialism Big Conference at Wausau Enthusiastic for Party Program, By Andrew J. Biemilkr WAUSAU, Wis...
...Out of the wreckage, the misery and uncertainty of a dying civilization-must come the call to the working masses for Socialist organization and education to take over the wreck and build a Socialist temple in which all humanity will be housed in security and enjoyment...
...Every farmer present pledged himself to go back to his home district and help strengthen the Socialist organization...
...Can you imagine anything more important to the welfare of the American people...
...The program is printed on another page in this issue.] Grizzled veterans of every farm struggle since the early Populist days rubbed elbows with young farmers whose first taste of the hardships of capitalism has been the present depression...
...The trouble is that it is not only the frontier which has disappeared, but opportunities as well...
...When you live in a chance-world, and what you catch you can keep, you eventually reach a stage when theitf is nothing more to catch...
...He addresses himself here to the long-standing problem of social insurance, which he'lists as one of the big items for the consideration of the next Congress...
...City people will face a higher cost of living, owing to smaller supplies largely caused by Nature, and will blame the AAA...
...Only by joint action through their own political party, the Socialist Party, can they gain true prosperity...
...Hoan was the principal speaker...
...No one man is going to solve our problems...
...We're not going to wait for lie LaFollettes any longer...
...The lose of lives and great expense to the tax' payers meant nothing to them so long as they ceroid add to their huge fortunes, vy preventing such malodorous practices we can take a long step toward preventing war...
...The reality is out of all proportion to his expansive phraseology...
...They have tijeir new Progressive Party now, and when they get themselves nominated they'll go down to Madison and hand down a platform...
...But it may be possible to devise a system that will soften the impact of disasters such as this, and it is assuredly possible to devise one that will guard against the distresses of normal or nearly normal times...
...After making due allowance for , the emphasis placed upon the nec: essity of "adequate preparedness" ! in other parts of the above article, ' the fact remains that the publlca) tions of this, and many similar, ¦ editorials in the leading ex service • men's paper of the United State* I shows that many of the veterans' • leadafg-'v';now occupy nearly the - same position as the Socialists rel garding the cause of modern wars...
...President Roosevelt's "welfare" message starts off with an anticlimax...
...Wisconsin farmers are thoroughly disgusted with old party politicians and particularly with those whose chief stock in trade is an illustrious name...
...For instance, in a leading article entitled, "Take the Profit Out of War," the National Tribune says: "There was a time, many years ago, when wars were won by armed forces alone...
...In the meantime, planned capitalism is staggering under the shock administered by Mother Nature...
...As a result there is now talk of no more restriction of planting or of output of factories, a return to the anarchy in production and distribution that produced the economic collapse...
...Minkley and Benson acted as chairmen of the sessions...
Vol. 17 • June 1934 • No. 24
